Busting Obamacare myths

FAIRWAY, KS (KCTV) -

Not everything you've heard about the Affordable Care Act, good or bad, is right.

Here are the facts on some of the biggest myths surrounding Obamacare.

Ed Fensholt's job at the insurance broker, Lockton, is making sure employers follow the law when it comes to healthcare coverage for their employees. Recently he's taken on the responsibility of explaining the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare to the many companies that will undergo major rule changes.

"We do get engaged in enrollment meetings where the employer is enrolling their employees in coverage and fielding questions from the employees. And it is rather striking how few Americans really understand that, in fact, there is a health reform law and no the Supreme Court did not strike it down," Fensholt said.

He said that is "most common myth No. 1," that Congress repealed and the Supreme Court overturned the Affordable Care Act.

"They know something about the Supreme Court taking some action, they hear things in the news about Republicans voting to repeal health reform. They don't understand that has to work through the Senate as well, and then get the President to sign it," Fensholt said.

The ACA is very much the law of the land, and it's most everyone's responsibility to get enrolled if you don't already have it through an employer.

"How much you pay for that will depend on your household income, and the level of coverage you want to buy," Fensholt said.

This means that the more a person makes, the less the government helps them pay. In Missouri and Kansas, those rates have not been released.

Most common myth No. 3 is that insurance remains a choice.

"The health reform law requires virtually every American, man, woman or child to have a minimum level of health insurance beginning in January 2014. And if they do not, they are subject to a tax penalty," Fensholt said. "For most of us, that penalty will be about one percent of household income or adjusted gross income for 2014 that doubles to two percent of household income for 2015, then increases to 2.5 percent of household income by 2016."

Most common myth No. 4, ACA replaces Medicare.

"About 17 percent of Medicare beneficiaries, about one in five of them are worried they're going to lose their Medicare coverage and be forced to buy private insurance through the exchanges. Nothing could be further from the truth. They can keep their Medicare, their Medicare coverage is adequate to satisfy the individual mandate, they don't need to do anything and shouldn't do anything," Fensholt said.

If you've heard something and want to find out if it's true, you can check with KCTV5's Healthcare in the Heartland's panel of experts.